• During the Biden administration’s second Global Covid Summit, U.S. and world leaders committed another $3.1 billion for the international pandemic response, with the United States contributing $200 million and other countries promising more than $2 billion for the immediate effort and $962 million for the World Bank’s preparedness and global health security fund. The United States also said it finalized a deal to license 11 COVID-19 technologies to U.N. bodies, making the tools available to researchers and manufacturers worldwide. (Politico)
• Before the pandemic, a quarter of Medicare patients treated in acute care hospitals were subject to patient harm, and 43% of these situations were likely preventable, according to the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Inspector General. Nearly a quarter of patients who experienced harm needed more treatments that likely drove “hundreds of millions of dollars” in additional Medicare and patient costs, the watchdog report said. (Fierce Healthcare)
• White House COVID-19 coordinator Dr. Ashish Jha warned that Americans’ immunity to the coronavirus is fading, that the virus is evolving to become more contagious and that most people will need booster shots. In an interview with The Associated Press, Jha predicted that the next generation of COVID-19 vaccines will “provide a much, much higher degree of protection” this fall and winter, when officials expect to see another surge. (The Associated Press)
• The meatpacking industry stoked “baseless” fears of a looming meat shortage and convinced the Trump administration to keep processing plants open in the early days of the pandemic despite the health risks, according to a select House committee investigation. Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.), the committee chair, said the findings emphasize that the companies value production over their workers’ health. (The New York Times)

Supreme Court’s Abortion Ruling Will Ripple Across the Reproductive Care Landscape. Women Are Worried About Birth Control and Much More

Morning Consult

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White House prepares to ration vaccines as Covid funding impasse looms

Adam Cancryn, Politico

The government’s funds are running out. Tough decisions may soon present themselves.

Fauci calls 1 million COVID deaths ‘incredibly tragic’: ‘Many of those deaths were avoidable’

Caroline Vakil, The Hill

Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, said in an interview on Thursday that the COVID-19 death toll of 1 million people in the U.S. is “incredibly tragic” and added that “many of those deaths were avoidable.”

Africa’s first Covid-19 vaccine factory has not received a single order.

Lynsey Chutel, The New York Times

The first factory in Africa licensed to produce Covid-19 vaccines for the African market has not received a single order and may shut down that production line within weeks if the situation doesn’t change, according to executives of the company, Aspen Pharmacare.

WHO: COVID-19 falling everywhere, except Americas and Africa

The Associated Press

The number of new coronavirus cases reported worldwide has continued to fall except in the Americas and Africa, the World Health Organization said in its latest assessment of the pandemic.

Massachusetts to Pay $56 Million After Deadly Covid Outbreak at Veterans’ Home

Michael Levenson, The New York Times

At least 84 veterans died after the outbreak at the state-run Holyoke Soldiers’ Home in March 2020. Massachusetts will pay their families a minimum of $400,000 each under the settlement.

What the current spike in Covid-19 cases could say about the coronavirus’ future

Andrew Joseph, Stat News

An increase in infections that began in places including the Northeast and Puerto Rico is now being seen in other parts of the country.

Louisiana House Stops Abortion Bill That Allowed Murder Charges Against Women

Laura Kusisto, The Wall Street Journal

Louisiana’s Republican-led House of Representatives stopped a measure Thursday that could have allowed women who obtain abortions to be charged with murder.

Sanders Revives Medicare for All Bill Amid Party Standstill

Alex Ruoff, Bloomberg Law

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) revived his Medicare for All legislation, arguing that shifting to a single-payer system could cure much of what ails US health care.

States can again directly pay for home health aides’ insurance

Maya Goldman, Modern Healthcare

Medicaid can directly pay for independent home health aides’ benefits, including health insurance, according to a final rule the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services issued Thursday.

Businesses face major benefits questions amid Roe uncertainty

Tina Reed, Axios

Corporate America is facing a flurry of questions about how it provides health benefits in the wake of a leaked U.S. Supreme Court draft that indicates the federal right to abortion could be overturned.

Texas Doctor Beats Ban on Transgender Care for Kids, for Now

Francesca Maglione and Laurel Brubaker Calkins, Bloomberg

A Texas doctor won a court order allowing her to temporarily continue providing transgender care for minors despite a state directive calling it child abuse.

FTC likely to examine insurer overlap in Advocate Aurora, Atrium merger

Samantha Liss, Healthcare Dive

The Advocate Aurora Health and Atrium Health merger is likely to get a close review from the Federal Trade Commission as the Biden administration has taken a tougher stance on healthcare consolidation, antitrust and legal experts say.

Cash Influx Aimed at Tackling Nursing Home Inspection Woes

Tony Pugh, Bloomberg Law

The Biden administration’s call to boost funding for nursing home inspections should improve state and federal oversight, but the extra money alone isn’t likely to fix longstanding problems that have undermined the process for years, resident advocates say.

HCA, CHS execs ‘hopeful’ deferred care will trickle back to hospitals in 2022

Dave Muoio, Fierce Healthcare

Major hospital chain executives say they’re confident revenue growth and volume recovery are on the horizon, although whether or not business will pick up in the short term is largely up to whether the country will see another major surge before the end of the year.

Many states are bracing for a post-Roe world. In Oklahoma, it’s practically arrived.

Shefali Luthra, The 19th

Already, clinicians in Oklahoma are trying to devise strategies to help their patients get to clinics in other states because of a six-week ban. But there are limits to what they can do.

California’s Newsom to Propose $1,500 Payments to Health Workers

Laura Mahoney, Bloomberg Law

California would send as much as $1,500 to private-sector hospital and nursing-home workers under a proposal to be released in Governor Gavin Newsom’s budget plan Friday.

Study: Medicare needs to improve reimbursements for home care to entice more ACO investment

Robert King, Fierce Healthcare

Medicare needs to make more home care services reimbursable for accountable care organizations to entice more providers to offer such care, a new study found.

Inspectors Saw Bacteria Risk at Abbott Baby Formula Factory Last Year

Anna Edney, Bloomberg

Federal inspectors spotted the potential for baby formula made at an Abbott Laboratories plant to become contaminated months before a recall that exacerbated a nationwide shortage, a government document shows.

Baby Formula Shortage Could Leave Parents Scrambling for Months

Annie Gasparro, The Wall Street Journal

Baby-formula manufacturers and retailers say they are working to address a long-running shortage in products on store shelves, but the hardships facing U.S. families may take months to abate.

F.D.A. Authorizes Underwear to Protect Against S.T.I.s During Oral Sex

Pam Belluck, The New York Times

It’s the first time underwear has been authorized for this purpose, and it provides a new choice for protection where the few options have been unpopular.

Should You Worry About Data From Your Period-Tracking App Being Used Against You?

Hannah Norman and Victoria Knight, Kaiser Health News

It’s estimated that millions of people in the U.S. use period-tracking apps to plan ahead, track when they are ovulating, and monitor other health effects. The apps can help signal when a period is late.

When SafeGraph pulled abortion clinic data, research protecting abortion rights hit a roadblock

Kate Kaye, Protocol

The move also exposed the complex ethical considerations of using data many believe is fuel for surveillance capitalism.

3 burning questions about the future of prescribing drugs online

Mohana Ravindranath, Stat News

Online companies prescribing and dispensing medications like Adderall are garnering increasing scrutiny from clinicians and regulators who question whether doctors and nurses can really glean enough about patients over video chat to safely recommend controlled substances.

Data sharing in health care is complicated. Industry executives discuss how they’re thinking about improving and using it

Anne Sraders, Fortune

Getting a patient’s often fragmented health care data organized into one complete record is the dream for many in the health care industry.

VA, EHR implementation facing patient data, access concerns, audit finds

Rebecca Pifer, Healthcare Dive

The Department of Defense and Department of Veterans Affairs continue to face challenges in their multibillion-dollar electronic health record implementation, according to news reports and a federal audit published last week.

One million of us

Sergio Peçanha and Yan Wu, The Washington Post

To attempt to put the 1 million deaths in context, we plotted its damage over more than two years and compared the continuing death toll with the tolls from previous catastrophes in our history.